Finch confirms first-class days behind him

Aaron Finch has effectively confirmed his first-class career is over, saying he has no plans to play Marsh Sheffield Shield again.

Australia's limited-overs captain told cricket.com.au after his 67 (100) in today's Marsh One-Day Cup loss to Western Australia that he wouldn't be available for selection in next week's Shield match against Tasmania at the Junction Oval.

The 35-year-old also said he doesn't see any point playing red-ball cricket again.

"I don't think I'll play again," he said. "There's no point, I'm not going to play Test cricket again so the younger guys in our squad, there's some really talented players, so there's no point me taking up one of those spots when they can be getting really valuable game time.

"I love playing red-ball cricket, but it's just reality.

"Unless you're pushing for a Test match, I don't really see the point to be honest."

With a home T20 World Cup at the beginning of next summer's domestic season and international white-ball fixtures likely throughout, he also confirmed he wouldn't be pushing for selection next year.

Finch's last first-class match was 822 days ago on December 7, 2019, when Victoria's Sheffield Shield clash against WA was abandoned after day one when the MCG pitch was deemed dangerous, with the right-hander not even getting a chance to bat.

Finch made his first-class debut against an Indian touring side in a rain-affected match at the Junction Oval in December 2007 and his career has yielded 4,915 runs at 35.87 in 88 matches, with his highest score of 288 not out coming for a Cricket Australia XI against the New Zealanders in 2015.

He has notched seven centuries and 33 half-centuries across his first-class career and reached the pinnacle when he made his Test debut against Pakistan in October 2018.

Finch went on to play five Test matches, scoring 278 runs at 27.8 with a high score of 62, and played his last game against India in the 2018 Boxing Day Test.

Australia's one-day opener spent some valuable time in the middle on Tuesday ahead of the limited-overs tour of Pakistan later this month and will now spend the next few weeks training for the three-match ODI series and sole T20I.

It was Finch's best knock since the Melbourne Renegades' final match of KFC BBL|11 after a lean T20 series against Sri Lanka that yielded 78 runs in five innings with a strike-rate of under a run-a-ball (91.76).

"It's always nice to go into a series getting some runs but that's still a couple of weeks away so now it's just down to a couple of weeks of training," he said.

"I feel like I'm hitting it nicely; I'm just tinkering a little bit with my technique and a few really minor changes, so it's just about trying to get them implemented as quick as I can."

Finch said today's six-wicket defeat to a WA side featuring the likes of Shaun Marsh, Jhye Richardson, AJ Tye and D'Arcy Short would serve as an education for his young Victoria teammates.

"You're not going to come up against many bigger challenges than that on a really difficult wicket against some world-class bowlers," he said.

"It was a great learning experience for our guys. They put us on the back foot early and they were pretty clinical.

"(There was) a lot for our batting group to learn and it's disappointing we couldn't post more and try and put a little bit of scoreboard pressure on."